


times two

by corvus_corvus



Category: Persona 5
Genre: Angst, Hand Jobs, Homophobia, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Making Out, Shadows - Freeform, This fic is actually quite vanilla I just had to include the previous tag for contractual reasons, This is a Persona 5 fic with major Persona 4 energy, You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy., i'm so tired of every persona protagonist's like five million names, of the "I am a shadow the true self…" infamy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-14
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-16 17:55:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,120
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29457837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/corvus_corvus/pseuds/corvus_corvus
Summary: If Ren had any chance of becoming more coherent, it’s gone the moment the shadow whispers against his temple. “Such a pretty boy. Messing with our head.”He wants to hear the words pour from Ryuji’s lips, confessions like release.
Relationships: Amamiya Ren/Sakamoto Ryuji, Kurusu Akira/Sakamoto Ryuji, Persona 5 Protagonist/Sakamoto Ryuji
Kudos: 20





	1. times two

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mars_please](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mars_please/gifts).



> Chapter One ( _times two_ ) is the fic you are looking for. Chapter Two ( _b-sides_ ) is a couple of fragments from the fic I meant to write instead of the fic I actually ended up writing. They are only associated because they grew from the same writing prompt.

Let’s start with a few questions.

Why are there two men draped beneath his arms? More importantly, how are they both Ryuji? And they _are_ Ryuji, Ren knows enough to spot the chipped tooth from a childhood incident and the pale birthmark under his jawline and the familiar shape of his—uhhhh nevermind. So what if Ren likes to look, and so what if his dreams love to paint Ryuji in enough detail he could never forget? So what if this is some kind of warped fantasy itself? Ren doesn’t care as long as Igor and the twins don’t interrupt another dream of warm touches to throw him in jail. And oh he does _not_ want to think of them now. Not when he has a Ryuji pulling lips away from his neck to glance up from beneath dark eyelashes. But his eyes, those eyes burn gold like nightmares and hazard lights and venomous snakes all in one.

Ren didn’t think his heart could pound any harder. Those eyes prove him wrong.

“Get back here,” Ren yanks Ryuji’s shadow up by the collar. He’s captivated by the turn of his lips before they are on his own, before a weight settles onto his lap. Ren rolls into the pressure whispering promises he isn’t sure he can keep while Ryuji’s tongue is shoved way too hard down his throat. Maybe the shadow thinks the same, because he shoves Ren back without warning. Suddenly it’s all solid lines against his back, hot and hard pressed low in a way that makes him shiver.

His tongue traces Ren’s spine from the base of his neck, pressing gently into each divot. “I _am_ the true self.”

Running a finger along Ryuji’s jaw, Ren sees brown eyes wet with almost-tears. “And he wants—I want you so bad, I’m sorry,” he gasps, “ _Ren_.”

God, Ren’s going to cum to Ryuji’s touches and Ryuji’s words and Ryuji is never going to let him live it down. That is, if he will ever talk to him again. And oh, fuck, has he mentioned there are _two of him_? Ren’s doing his best to keep a level head, but this is kind of a lot, okay?

“You just wanna watch?” The shadow asks his double. “Why am I even asking, I know the answer. We wanna see what we’d look like together, right? We think about it all the time.”

Ryuji, frowns into gold eyes. “I don’t.”

Rolling his hips, the shadow groans and Ren echoes him. “Quit lyin’ to yourself,” he snaps. Ren reaches for Ryuji’s hand while his shadow drags a finger against the the soft swell of his lips. The strength he knows Ryuji has, the strength he’s seen incapacitate his enemies, is nowhere to be found in the way his hands hold Ren. This time, he speaks directly to Ren, “Let me take care of you.”

He can’t control it, Ren nods, whispers _pleasepleaseplease_ so desperately before he can even process Ryuji’s words. Lets the finger at his lips slip into his mouth and against his tongue so that his words slur.

“Y-you like this?” Ryuji wrenches his hand out of Ren’s grip. Ren trails his fingers over Ryuji’s as he pulls away. He searches for a polite way to say that yes, he’d gladly beg for Ryuji’s shadow to pound him until his nerves are fried and he dry orgasms at least once. He doesn’t find it.

“Uh,” is the best Ren comes up with. It’s a struggle to bring words back to him when he’s overloaded like summer rain on skin, gentle and constant.

If he had any chance of becoming more coherent, it’s gone the moment the shadow whispers against his temple. “Such a pretty boy. Messing with our head.”

That brings Ren back to earth, worry shuffling through his memories. “I didn’t do anything, I’m just me.”

“And until it was ‘just you’ I didn’t ever have to worry about likin’ guys. Didn’t have to walk around school feeling like everyone could read my fucking mind when I looked at you. Didn’t have to worry about flirtin’ with girls all the time to keep people off my back.” Ren trusts the shadow behind him, but the teeth on his neck make him shiver all the same. When Ryuji bites down harder, Ren hopes it leaves a mark. “Didn’t have to feel guilty about thinking about my friend just to jerk off.”

He likes who he likes. It took a long time to get comfortable with that, but Ren is good most days. Ryuji is…not at the same point, apparently. It’s a surprise to Ren, who definitely thought all the touching and smiling and confession sounding words were a heartfelt heavy-handed flirt. But it wasn’t; the thought echoes in his mind and Ren almost cums then and there. This whole time he’s had all these, these dirty thoughts. And this whole time, they’ve been about such a sweet innocent boy. But he didn’t know, and _fuck_ if that knowledge doesn’t send his blood pumping faster. And maybe it’s the country upbringing, maybe it’s the jail time, maybe it’s just that he is fucking twisted to the core, but the idea that his simple presence might have been enough to make Ryuji Sakamoto question his sexuality appeals to something dark within him. He wants to hear the words pour from Ryuji’s lips, confessions like release.

When Ren gasps, the Ryuji at his back, laughs in a way that shakes through Ren. It feels safe and happy, and he knows how Ryuji feels that this is wrong—has been there himself in the past—but how could it be? The shadow returns his attention to the other Ryuji, hands trailing over Ren’s body all the while. “Let’s start with a few questions. Do you like him?” he punctuates the question with Ren’s gasp. “Because I know I do. I would fight off anything for him. I’d follow Ren to the bottom of this stupid hell hole no matter what gets in our way. I don’t wanna be without him. And if I’m you, then—”

“No shit, I care. I just don’t, I don’t, not like that. _I’m_ not like that.”

“Not like what?” The shadow hooks his finger in Ren’s mouth and pulls, like a caught fish. “Say it.”

“Not like me,” Ren pulls away to interrupt, voice firm. “ I want you, Ryuji, and that’s not okay. You don’t like guys. That’s what you mean, right?”

“I—”

“How could you even say that, Ren? I’m hurt.” This Ryuji, the Ryuji holding him traces a heart on his chest. Light. Soft. Warm. “But he brings up a good point. Do you want him?” The shadow asks the Ryuji watching them. Ren tilts his head back, and Ryuji meets him halfway with the softest kiss of his stupid young life. It should be chaste, but that just serves to make Ren shiver in Ryuji’s grasp, pressing him tighter against the heat at his back.

“Stop it!”

“He wants us,” the shadow continues. He gets quieter as he speaks, holding his breath until the _vrrrrp_ of a zipper cuts through the air. Ren thanks whatever is unholy that he manages to not come the moment he feels the ghost of a hand across his hip. “Ren wants us. It’s okay. There’s nothing wrong with us.”

“Please, Ryuji,” he begs, and the shadow listens. He drags his hand beneath Ren’s shirt and flirts with the edge of his waistband. When he dips beneath, he hears both Ryuji’s swear.

So Ren’s shock is understandable when Ryuji’s shadow—hands down Ren’s pants running gentle, torturous touches all, _all_ over—fixes those golden eyes on his twin and asks the most dangerous question of all. “Do you love him?”

It’s like a bolt through him, and Ren gasps loud enough that he can’t afford to be embarrassed. Ren isn’t sure whether that Ryuji is asking him or the other half of himself, but he replies instantly overflowing with _yes_ and _so much_ and _of course, Ryuji_. The shadow pulls him closer, touches Ren more harder faster and, oh god.

“This is stupid,” Ryuji grumbles, and the distance between Ryuji, Ryuji, and Ren is gone. With one Ryuji smiling into the back of his neck and jerking him off and another kissing his cheek all shy like they’re in a fucking shōjo, Ren feels himself burn red. He thinks he might die, to be honest. Or maybe he already has, and this is his extremely questionable idea of heaven. But those thoughts don’t matter right now. What does matter is that Ren doesn’t know if this is right, doesn’t know if this is taking advantage, but it’s Ryuji. _Ryuji_. And he loves all of him, from the sunflower face he shares with the light of day to this shadow festering like blood gone septic in the underbelly of Tokyo’s collective unconscious.

“W-we need to sort this out,” Ren stutters between breaths.

Beautiful, brown-eyed Ryuji tucks Ren’s hair beneath his chin like nothing is wrong. “Why?” Ryuji asks right as the other Ryuji twists his wrist _just_ right and Ren is gone. Lucky for him, the shadow catches on. A smile flits across Ren’s face, even the angriest, bitterest parts of Ryuji always have his back.

The shadow reaches out from behind Ren to grab his double’s chin. Ryuji tries to pull away, but Ren catches him too, looks him right in the eye when the shadow continues. “Wanna try this again? Let’s start with a few questions.”

_Do you like him?_

_Do you want him?_

_Do you love him?_

—

_please help, i think i’m seeing double._


	2. b-sides

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter One ( _times two_ ) is the fic you are looking for. Chapter Two ( _b-sides_ ) is a couple of fragments from the fics I meant to write instead of the fic I actually ended up writing. They are only associated because they grew from the same writing prompt.

### all hail the queen

##### a.k.a. the happy one featuring niijima makoto

“I’m sorry, can you repeat yourself? I don’t think I heard you correctly.”

“There’s two of them, Makoto. Two! I’m going to die,” Ren pauses and Makoto hears some distant mumbling over the phone. “And then, I’m going to hell,” he whispers.

“Can I come over?”

“Are you trying to damn yourself too?”

“That’s your only opposition?” She rolls her eyes, while he stammers over the line. “Just make out with them already. This is a less than once in a lifetime opportunity, Ren.”

“Makoto!”

“That’s what we told him, Ryuji’s laugh rings out.

“I think we’re makin’ him blush too much,” says Ryuji’s voice again from much further away.

Say what you will about Makoto’s attitude, but there are some things about her that are difficult to deny. She’s a skilled multitasker, balancing her phone on a shoulder while yanking a jacket onto her shoulders, grabbing her keys while she kicks the door shut behind her. She’s strategic, planning every move in her head before she’s even made it to her motorcycle. She’s decisive, only taking a moment of thought before declaring, “Well, I’m on my way. See you all in a few minutes.”

“Excuse me?” Ren squeaks, and Makoto can imagine the blush high on his cheeks. She can’t wait to see it in person.

“Just because you’re not going to take advantage of this doesn’t mean _I’m_ not going to.” And the Ryujis must have heard her, because it’s their voices she hears laughing and whistling and calling out to her over Ren’s sharp inhale. “And Ren?”

His voice still shakes with nerves, but there’s something under there now, something sharper. “Yeah?”

“Keep in mind, I never said I was going to share. You like watching, right?” Makoto laughs at the groan she gets in response, and promptly hangs up the phone. 

She’d like to enjoy this story without a preview, thank you very much.

### babybabybabybabybaby

##### a.k.a. two ryujis, but for some reason one is a child

“Why?”

“Because I said so.”

“But why?”

“Because I’m older than you.”

“Why?”

“Because that’s just how time works you little—”

“Shit!”

“Where the eff did you learn that word?” Ryuji’s almost pulled his hair out, “Ren, did you hear that? We’re screwed. Wait, are you? Are you eating popcorn?”

He waves the bag as throws a handful into his mouth. Muffled by popcorn, he replies, “Did you want some?”

“Yes!” The child dashes over in an instant, while Ren shifts to make room for him on the couch. Ryuji, tall and blond and everything his younger version is not, pouts.

“Now you’re just playing favorites.”

Ren smiles back at him. “Awww, Ryuji. You’re always my favorite.”

“You’re my favorite too, Ren-Ren,” the tiny, sweet, young, _manipulative boyfriend-stealing little baby bitch_ Ryuji beams.

“What the hell,” the older—contemporary, real—Ryuji seethes, “He was talking to me.”

“Are you jealous,” Ren laughs, almost chokes on the popcorn, “of yourself?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you had fun with these fragments! I swear I was trying to write something fun like these and I still wrote angst anyways. Oops.

**Author's Note:**

>   * Two friends asked me a joke question, and I turned it into this. Obviously, you should be exceedingly jealous of them because I am the best friend ever for writing this completely unwarranted and unoriginal take.
>   * I was going to write a kind of framing for this explaining why/how this was happening, but then I realized I can do whatever I want here without explaining myself to anyone. :) Ahhh, what a good feeling.
>   * My apologies, this fic has major Hanamura Yosuke energy.
> 



End file.
